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***The FEBRUARY 2018 VUD is now available.***

Today we're going to talk about one of those radio families. You know, a family with a bunch of radio stations, generally in the same region, and sometimes prone to succession disputes. This year, we've covered such stories as the succession dispute at XEMS, in which a court ruled that the heirs from the owner's first marriage were also entitled to the estate.

In 2013, however, it was a different radio family in Veracruz that decided to split up their empire: the Malpica Valverde family.

The History

XHPR-FM 101.3 (now 101.7) was the first FM station in the port of Veracruz (though not the first in the entire state, a title belonging to XEOM/XHOM-FM), receiving its concession in 1965. In March 1970, it was joined by XHPB-FM 99.7, and in 1976 XHRN-FM was awarded to complete the triangle.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Grupo FM burst into other areas of the state. It bought XHTD-FM in Coatzacoalcos and built and signed on two new stations: XHTXA-FM in Tuxpan, originally known as Calor 93, and "Laser 89" XHFTI-FM Fortín/Córdoba. With its six stations, Grupo FM was among the top dogs in Veracruz radio. It covered all the large radio markets in the state. In the 80s, Félix Malpica Valverde began hosting a program called Líderes de Opinión, still on the air.

In 1991, Mario, who was relatively separate from the family business, took up radio himself: he built XHSAV-FM in San Andrés Tuxtla.

Félix retained Grupo FM, with three stations: XHPB, XHPR and XHTXA. XHPR was sold this year to Grupo Radio Digital.

Francisco Adolfo started Radio Networks, owning XHRN, XHFTI and XHTD. (Grupo Radio Digital also acquired XHTD this year.)

The article also describes Grupo FM:

"Grupo FM is infamous among reporters for paying the worst salaries for reporters across the state, with a monthly salary barely reaching 4,000 pesos. The news director, who often doubles as a reporter, gets 10,000 pesos a month."

On the opposite coast from Veracruz, one of the year's saddest broadcasting sagas continues to drag on.

That's right, there's more news in the XHK saga. This time, it looks like the bankruptcy liquidation has resulted in the forced eviction of what's left. The existing buildings on the Radio and Television Center site will likely be demolished as the property is sold to one of the defunct station's more prominent creditors by a judge's order. Apparently this money won't be used to pay some of the back wages for the workers either.

Max Rodríguez, who has been the singular source for coverage of this unusual event in Mexican TV history — the first death of a commercial, properly licensed TV station perhaps ever, with no replacement — points to the SITATYR union, which like other Mexican unions has been trying to prevent strikes.

There will still, however, be an operating broadcast station at Colina del Sol: XHNT-FM, among the last pieces of Francisco King Rondero's broadcast empire to survive in any form, even if it is little more than Radio Fórmula for BCS. Upon migration, the FM facility was placed on the XENT-AM tower site just north of the Radio and Television Center.

Thursday is one of the two final apagón dates. Stations that are actually ready will leave the air, such as the TV4 state network in Guanajuato (transmitters outside of León did not convert last year).

The stations going on Thursday are in the Guanajuato, Jalisco, Tlaxcala and Oaxaca state networks, plus a few other odds and ends:

There are similar words in some AM-FM auths, notably XHVUC-FM (this is how we know XHVUC's exact coordinates because we have XHVUN). But those say that the station itself is installed there, not that "un equipo" (equipment, or potentially an equipo complementario).

XHZER is already one of the highest-powered stations in the country, with 100 kW ERP. (Then again, so is XHNUC.)

I've also found the identity of the Sonora shadow, but I'm not sure where exactly it is. It belongs to XHFL in Ciudad Obregón. Potentially for Navojoa? This one might require contacting Uniradio to pin down. I do think I'm onto something location-wise.

The March 2016 Cuadro says there are 7 FM shadows in Quintana Roo (which are all, but maybe one, XHNUC-FM), two in Zacatecas (shadow XHZER Fresnillo and Jerez) and one in Sonora (shadow XHFL). We also know of three new FM shadows authorized by the IFT in recent years, two in Jalisco (shadow XEAD and XETIA Ajijic) and another in Veracruz (shadow XHRRR Tecolula).

One of them is seeing a document, neatly typeset in Avant Garde, with a callsign you haven't seen before.

A warm welcome to Mexico's newest community radio station...

XHOLP-FM Santa Rosalía, BCS (Radio Kashana under the concessionaire Ondas en la Playa, A.C.) is the first social broadcast station in the entire state, and even better yet, it is social-community. The concession was delivered yesterday and was 16 months in the making.

It'll probably be a few months before we see this one in the RPC. We don't even have XHDCP Michoacán!

You're right. They only have twelve stations. But they've talked about expanding to Huetamo before, and in here they explicitly call for a 13th facility to be built in Huetamo, at Col. La Nopalera, on RF channel 34 (which is being used by most of the SMRTV stations). A 300-watt transmitter is specified, and so are some coordinates (that instead lead to Cd. Hidalgo). The antenna would be 30 meters high. My (probably bad) calculations using the available technical information say the ERP would be 2.673 kW.

Note that Huetamo is listed with the same technical parameters (including coordinates) as Cd. Hidalgo.

Morelia specifies twenty times the power of any other site. 2.67kw is probably a decent figure for the ERP of the other sites. I don't see a specification for the feedline losses, which makes it impossible to calculate an accurate number. (They specify 60m of feedline at all sites but I wouldn't bet they use all of it - which means the ERP will vary slightly from site to site - unless the IFT doesn't allow them to operate the transmitters are maximum output power)

Otherwise the equipment lists are pretty standard. There's one set of portable test gear, assigned for some reason to Zitacuaro. It looks like the PSIP will be the same at all sites as I only see one PSIP generator in the bid. (to be located at the uplink site) For some reason they specified *100* extra satellite receivers, beyond the one specified for each transmitter site & one (probably for QC monitoring) at the uplink site. The 100 IRDs are less capable (and presumably much less expensive) than the "good" ones specified for the transmitter sites. If I were to guess I'd say they're for distribution to schools for direct pickup of the satellite feed?

I have no idea as to what the state government was thinking. In fact...

What's odd here is that we actually have full technical parameters for the operating (read: not Huetamo) stations. Those report ERPs between 112 and 151 watts for most of the xmtrs (with 50-watt transmitters). Morelia's listed ERP is 2.951 kW which is roughly 20 times the average (but still a low, low ERP for a TV station). They're going to need to talk to the IFT on that one.

Puruándiro at 34 is correct — the auth has 34, the tables have 22 (and I already believed the former over the latter). 34 is almost being used as an SFN for the state network except in Morelia (XHCTMO) and some other areas. The VC will be 16 which is shared by the network.

Huetamo will be a new build. SMRTV doesn't even have an FM transmitter there, nor does it hold a TV concession. A public use TDT channel was set aside in Huetamo in the 2016 PABF.

With XHABC and XHUS managing digital, I'm very much paying attention to Michoacán because they could be the biggest loser in the apagón (aside from the QR state network whose problems were permit-related). I'm also worried about parts of Veracruz, Chiapas, Nuevo León and Sonora in terms of transition. Guanajuato had its act together and actually managed to bring its transmitters down on the 15th; so did Oaxaca, for the most part, although their site is dead thanks to the December 1 change in government.

The other worry I have is Guerrero — we know they're operating in digital, we now know on what channel in Acapulco (33), but I don't have an auth or some recognition from the IFT that they're on air. As RTG is based in Acapulco (the only state network completely based outside of its state capital - the Chilpancingo xmtr has been known to be out of commission a lot anyway), the future of XHHCG is at risk. They do have a December 31 apagón PSA up (which is correct given the DOF publications).

I don't see anything about the apagón from Veracruz, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Sonora or Nuevo León, which does make me worry. A lot of these are rural transmitters that provide the only noncommercial or even the only outright TV service in tiny towns.